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Christopher Alexander has died

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Re: Christopher Alexander has died

#111

Post by dr_dshiv »

siegecraft wrote: post #97
dr_dshiv wrote: post #19

He had really interesting computational ideas about harmony. From The Nature of Order (2002) “As architects, builders, and artists, we are called upon constantly—every moment of the working day—to make judgments about relative harmony. We are constantly trying to make decisions about what is better and what is worse…” Following this, he published a paper on “harmony-seeking computation” as an approach to optimize “wh…

I wasn't aware of this paper before now and am excited to read it. The 15 properties of life were, I believe, his attempt to find the universal rules underlying the design patterns he described in A Pattern Language . I've long thought that most of those properties could be described algorithmically and was curious what sort of system they would converge to. I suppose nature is one easy answer, but it's not a very us…

Awesome, thank you for sharing these great resources. How did you find them?

Re: Christopher Alexander has died

#112

Post by dr_dshiv »

motohagiography wrote: post #104

Every time I meet an architect or designer, I ask them about Alexander, and in the sample of about 12, only one (a world renowned architect) had heard of him. He's hugely influential in software, and was a big influence on me in the 90's and 00's, along with Tufte, Hofstadter, and Feynman. I think it was hacker culture that really bouyed his ideas and kept them in the popular consciousness, and in turn, his ideas bec…

Alexander hated modern architecture, which he felt was all about ego and not about human needs. Probably why architects conveniently forgot him.

Re: Christopher Alexander has died

#113

Post by vpribish »

sloan wrote: post #24
lukasb wrote: post #5

Saw him speak at Berkeley around the time his book on the Eshin project was released. Talked in very strong terms about the importance of working in a holistic, caring way. A SWE in the audience spoke up, saying basically "look, we want to follow that approach, but it's hard, we have a lot of stakeholders to satisfy in order for a project to happen." Alexander was unyielding. "Once you've worked with love, you won't…

Thanks for the anecdote, I love it. What’s SWE in this context?

Soft Ware Engineer. it's a crappy TLA.

Re: Christopher Alexander has died

#114

Post by dr_dshiv »

rwmj wrote: post #11

He turns up in Stewart Brand's excellent TV programme How Buildings Learn , which is also on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brandst

Original music by Brian Eno! I’m not sure which episode Alexander shows up in, but it isn’t 5. Still, highly recommended.

Re: Christopher Alexander has died

#115

Post by dr_dshiv »

yesenadam wrote: post #90
rwmj wrote: post #11

He turns up in Stewart Brand's excellent TV programme How Buildings Learn , which is also on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brandst

Thanks! That channel seems to have episodes 2 to 6, but not 1. Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maTkAcDbrEY

Alexander shows up after minute 20. The whole episode is excellent.

Re: Christopher Alexander has died

#116

Post by [deleted] »

drallison wrote: post #87

Steve Hanna introduced me to Christopher Alexander's work. I was consulting at Intel, writing the Intel 4004/4040 native code assembler for the Intellec Microcomputer Development System. Steve and I shared a fascination in how systems and program get designed. Steve got me to read Notes on the Synthesis of Form and I was hooked. Somehow I'd missed it when it appeared in the Whole Earth Catalog . It certainly influenc…

[deleted]

Re: Christopher Alexander has died

#117

Post by seumars »

jalfresi wrote: post #89

Very early in my software development career, i was frustrated and sad that i wasnt able to progress due to a lack of comprehension of how software is structured from smaller sub systems. I didnt have any kind of mentor available to me, and I seriously considered changing careers. I naively assumed that good software was written by naturally talented people, and because I was having problems growing I was obviously n…

My intro to Alexander was also through Notes on the Synthesis of Form, though personally I found it to be really antiquated. Shortly after I found out he distanced himself from a lot of the design methodology work he did in the 60s:

>‘There is so little in what is called ‘design methods’that has anything useful to say about how to design buildings that I never evenread the literature anymore [...] I would say forget it, forget the whole thing.’

That's not to say the literature and was/is immensely inspiring, so much so that his name comes up within software engineering as much as it does within architecture.

Re: Christopher Alexander has died

#118

Post by seumars »

gjvc wrote: post #32
xLaszlo wrote: post #6

This video of him from 1996 is amazing with hindsight. A must watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LdFA-_zfA RIP Christopher Alexander

OOPSLA talks of that era were fantastic. Alan Kay has often paid tribute to Christopher Alexander in his talks and I cannot resist mentioning this from Alan from the following year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY

Too bad Kay has never paid enough tribute to Nygaard and Dahl in the same manner. His comments from that '97 OOPSLA talk on Simula being incomprehensible are absurdly misleading.

Re: Christopher Alexander has died

#119

Post by motohagiography »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #112
motohagiography wrote: post #104

Every time I meet an architect or designer, I ask them about Alexander, and in the sample of about 12, only one (a world renowned architect) had heard of him. He's hugely influential in software, and was a big influence on me in the 90's and 00's, along with Tufte, Hofstadter, and Feynman. I think it was hacker culture that really bouyed his ideas and kept them in the popular consciousness, and in turn, his ideas bec…

Alexander hated modern architecture, which he felt was all about ego and not about human needs. Probably why architects conveniently forgot him.

Curiously, the Prince of Wales was a big supporter of Alexander's ideas, and wrote a book about related themes. He's on the talking circuit these days, and it might be interesting for someone to ask him his thoughts on Alexander.

Re: Christopher Alexander has died

#120

Post by crabmusket »

lukasb wrote: post #5

Saw him speak at Berkeley around the time his book on the Eshin project was released. Talked in very strong terms about the importance of working in a holistic, caring way. A SWE in the audience spoke up, saying basically "look, we want to follow that approach, but it's hard, we have a lot of stakeholders to satisfy in order for a project to happen." Alexander was unyielding. "Once you've worked with love, you won't…

That sounds a lot like the ideas in this talk, where he was asked to give a keynote at a software convention.

http://www.patternlanguage.com/archive/ieee.html

> This is an extraordinary vision of the future, in which computers play a fundamental role in making the world—and above all the built structure of the world—alive, humane, ecologically profound, and with a deep living structure. I realize that you may be surprised by my conclusion. This is not what I am, technically, supposed to have been talking about to you. Or you may say, Well, great idea, but we're not interested. I hope that is not your reaction. I hope that all of you, as members of a great profession of the future, will decide to help me, and to help yourselves, by taking part in this enormous world-wide effort. I do think you are capable of it. And I do not think any other professional body has quite the ability, or the natural opportunity for influence, to do this job as it must be done.

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